“So might you,” Burrich countered. “You are captain of her guard. The concern is rightly yours.”
“I haven’t been keeping watch outside her door each night,” Foxglove objected.
“Perhaps you should have,” Burrich said, then tempered it with a “Now that you know.”
Foxglove looked into the fire. “Perhaps I should. So. The question is, who escorts her back to Buckkeep?”
“All of her personal guard, of course. A Queen should travel with no less.”
Somewhere off in the darkness there was a sudden outcry. I sprang to my feet.
“Stand fast!” Burrich snapped at me. “Wait for word. Don’t rush off until you know what is happening!”
In a moment Whistle of the Queen’s guard reached our fire. She stood before Foxglove to report. “Two-pronged attack. At the breach just below the south tower, they tried to break out. And some got through at”
An arrow swept through her and carried off forever whatever she had begun to tell us. Outislanders were suddenly upon us, more of them than my mind could grasp, and all converging on the Queen’s tent. “To the Queen!” I shouted, and had the slim comfort of hearing my cry taken up farther down the line. Three guards rushed out of the tent to put their backs to its flimsy walls while Burrich and I stood our ground in front of it. I found my sword in my hand, and from the corner of my eye saw firelight run red up the edge of Burrich’s. The Queen appeared suddenly in the door of the tent.
“Don’t guard me!” she rebuked us. “Get to where the fighting is.”
“It’s here, my lady,” Burrich grunted and stepped forward suddenly to take off the arm of a man who had ventured too close.